A Woman Shares Her Ups and Downs with Weight Loss

Maressa Brown had a tradition she followed every weekend. Before her family woke up on Sunday mornings, she would sneak out of the house and drive to the local bagel shop and the nearby Starbucks. She loved surprising her family with breakfast, and picking up a caramel macchiato and cinnamon sugar bagel for herself. One Sunday morning, however, that changed. When Brown returned to her house with her usual purchases, her mother did not thank her for the breakfast. Instead she surprised her daughter by asking her, “Why are you eating this? Don’t you know it’s bad for you?” That was the last Sunday morning that Brown got breakfast for her family. Her mother’s questions served as a wake up call for the 18 year old who, at the time, was seriously overweight. At 4 feet, 11 inches and 160 pounds, she wore a size 16. She decided then and there that things were going to change. The next day, Brown was talking with her best friend, Colleen, saying she wished she could be thin when she left for college in the fall. The two decided to take advantage of a special on a weight-loss pill at the local Walgreens. They both tried Metabolife the next day. The results, however, were not what they had hoped for. “It takes your appetite away and makes you feel totally hyped up,” Brown said, describing the pill. “I went to the gym, and I almost passed out because I was so screwed up. I felt like my heart was pumping a million times faster than it should have been. It was not natural.” Instead of feeling healthy and energized, Brown felt hyper and unhealthy. She decided that weight loss pills were not the way to go. After doing some research, she realized that the changes would take time and work. After reading about the Weight Watchers program, she was drawn to the healthy attitude and group approach to weight loss. On March 9, 2002, Brown went to her first meeting. Almost three years later, she weighs in at a svelte 125 and wears a size four. She loves tank tops, short skirts and the color pink. “I changed my life,” she said happily. These changes weren’t easy, and they weren’t fast. Brown’s weight-loss journey was a long and sometimes hard one. But she stuck with it, because she knew that, in the long run, it would be worth it. Staying on track was hard at times, but Brown had some tricks up her sleeve that helped her persevere. The most important thing, she said, is to start out with the right mindset. Without the right intentions, there is no point in trying to change. “You have to be losing weight for the right reason,” Brown said. “That’s what keeps you going! If you think I’ll lose 20 pounds so I can look good in a bikini this summer, then you’ll think, ‘Oh I can do it next summer.’” Along with procrastination, she said another downfall of losing weight for the wrong reasons happens when people concentrate too much energy and attention on looks instead of feelings. Focusing on overall health, instead of washboard abs or a pants size, will produce longer and better effects. “I kind of see it as a house,” Brown said. “You have to have a solid foundation. Otherwise, you’re a deck of cards. You need a real heartfelt motivation. … A bikini is going to last 3 months but you feeling healthy and fit are going to last 12 months over the year.” The most important – and hardest – thing to do in order to lose weight is to change habits. According to David Coursen, a personal trainer in Chicago, IL, people need to assess their lifestyles in order to change them. “What are their habits?” he asked. “What is their relationship with food? Do they get enough sleep? Do they drink enough water? You really need to look at that to have a perception of where a person is coming from and what changes they need to make.” After assessing habits and lifestyles, another key to success in weight loss is to set realistic goals. Instead of aiming at 50 pounds, aim for ten. After that ten, aim for another ten. The first ten pounds can sometimes be the hardest to lose. But in order to take that first step, Coursen recommended making little changes that produce big results. “If you work on the 10th floor, take the stairs,” he said. “If you park in a parking lot, park at the back. Start from basic places.” He said another key to success is for people to integrate exercise into their lifestyles. He recommended that people look at their schedules and see what kind of changes they can do without disrupting their lives. Coursen said the best place to begin at the gym is with cardiovascular exercise. He would then add a regimen of light weight training. A schedule of 30-40 minutes of cardio, with 20-30 minutes of weight training, three times a week, would be an ideal workout session. Brown said the secret to her success at the gym was to only do the activities she enjoyed. “You should feel good about yourself when you’re done with your workout,” she said. “Look at it as your ‘you time’ when you listen to your own music and enjoy yourself.” Another key to success in weight loss is to not fall for the gimmicks. Joi Augistin, a licensed nutritionist, said that the “success stories” of fad diets are not actual proof that the diets will work for everyone. “It’s not necessarily a proven fact, it’s just one study that has found something new, and it confuses everyone,” she said. “There are plenty of books out there, but of course you can find one that is not credible. Often the books are written to make money and not necessarily on good nutrition principles.” Augustin said the and most important aspect of weight loss is a person’s mindset. While many temporarily try a diet to lose weight, keeping the weight off is a more difficult task. She recommended comparing personal habits to nutritional recommendations and assessing what changes should be made. “Try to make a commitment to make changes that you feel you can stick to,” she said. “You can try to motivate someone to change, but if they don’t believe they can do it and make it applicable to their situation, then it’s going to be difficult. It’s kind of making baby steps to an ultimate goal. The all or nothing mentality just doesn’t work. You can’t just flick a switch and be perfect – you have to take small steps to get toward the optimum results of eating.” Fad diets, the opposite of small steps, have been popular for decades and have gone from low-fat in the 80s to sugar-free in the 90s to low-carbohydrates in recent years. Augustin attributed these trends to lack of proper information, saying the best advice she could give someone is to follow the lead of the US dietary guidelines. “The government is pretty good at reviewing all of the literature and science in terms of recommending diets,” she said. “They don’t go with diets that are proven effective in one or two trials. They look at everything – their recommendations are based on year and years of research.” One recommendation from the government, which Augustin and Coursen agreed with, is for people to drink eight glasses of water a day. “If they substitute water for other things they drink during the day, you’ll feel better and you’ll be cutting 200 go 800 calories a day from your diet,” Coursen said. “Juice and soda have high calorie contents.” Along with lowering calorie intake, he said that drinking water can cure hunger cravings, resulting in less snacking. “You’ll always remind your body that maybe you’re not hungry, you’re thirsty,” he added. For Brown, changing her eating habits was all in baby steps. She used to eat panera sandwiches filled with mayonnaise, mozzarella cheese and chicken, on buttered bread, but she asked for the cheese and mayonnaise to be left off. She used to perk herself up during the day with a sugar-filled cappuccino from a machine, but she opted for a latte made with skim milk from Starbucks instead. Another trick of the trade Brown used was to not deny herself everything she wanted, reminding herself that refusing every kind of treat is a futile attempt. “Sometimes you have to let yourself have real chocolate,” she said. “They try to make you understand that if you want something that is considered bad, denying yourself is just going to make it worse. It’s going to make you eat around your cravings instead. Sometimes a girl has to have her chocolate!” In the end, Brown said, everything goes back to the reason someone is losing weight. “Think about how good you feel if you really change your life,” she said. “If you really pick yourself up and make yourself capable. Everyone is capable of doing this. It’s not a miracle when people lose 40 pounds. It feels like one, but everyone is perfectly capable of it.”